KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Shortly before Christmas one year back home in Mount Carmel, Pa., ever-eager young Brett Veach intercepted or otherwise discovered a package anticipating his name was on the gift within.

Careful to slowly pull away the Scotch tape lest he give himself away, he discovered the new Tecmo Bowl video game indeed intended for him.

Not content just to confirm its arrival, Veach deftly sliced a slit in the plastic to minimize any potential forensic trail, removed the new game and swapped in the old version before carefully rewrapping it. Then he and his brothers played with the new one until Christmas morning, when he had to pull off the most challenging part of the sleight of hand: simulating surprise when he opened the package.

“He couldn’t wait,” his brother Bob Jr. said in 2021. “That’s sort of how he is. When he wants something, he goes and gets it.”

The anecdote came up through a visit to Mount Carmel for a column about how Veach’s football-steeped coal country heritage helped form him into the general manager of the Chiefs — who have played in seven straight AFC championship games, appeared in five Super Bowls and won three of them in the eight seasons since Veach took over from John Dorsey.

And while there are numerous reasons for the franchise’s incredible run, starting with future Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Andy Reid and the awe-inspiring Patrick Mahomes, Veach is at the nexus of it all by way of nearly two decades of working with Reid since he began life in the NFL as Reid’s personal assistant in Philadelphia.

His roster building is a constant churn, of course, especially in conjunction with managing the NFL salary cap and prospecting for and signing key free agents as the Chiefs diligently have this offseason.

But perhaps nothing provides a better snapshot of what defines Veach and his front office than the lifeblood of the NFL draft, which will be held this year April 24-26 in Green Bay.

At least entering what has morphed from a mundane process to an annual spectacle we witnessed firsthand here two years ago, the Chiefs hold eight picks starting with No. 31 overall in the first round.

Which is where tales of Christmas past come into play.

Veach’s mindset of trading up

Because in certain ways Veach retains the same spirit on the job as the youngster who couldn’t wait for presents to be opened and was apt to go get what he wants.

Heck, he’ll practically say so himself … albeit in the more mature context of conviction over what’s best for the team that’s been developed through endless staff scouting and research.

“If you’re going to do all this work, you might as well go get a guy you like,” he said during a Zoom call with reporters on Thursday. “As opposed to saying, ‘Well, I don’t believe what I see, so I’d rather just take a few guys, because a few guys is better than the one guy I like.’ ”

That point echoes another Christmas episode that didn’t make the 2021 story but reverberates now:

One year, Veach asked for an authentic Emmitt Smith jersey. But his mother, Donna, wasn’t willing to spend that kind of money. Plus, the replicas looked fine to her.

When the package arrived, well, he intercepted that one, too. Upset it was a mere replica instead of what he really wanted, he hid it under his mattress and let it be thought the item never came … until his mother later found it when she was changing his sheets.

That go-get-it mindset helps explain why Veach has been hesitant to trade down (just twice in his tenure) for the sake of more picks (their 54 in his era is tied with the Dolphins for fewest) and instead has been among the NFL’s most habitually aggressive forces during the draft:

According to NFL.com’s “Front Office Tendencies” metric, Veach’s 12 trade-ups since 2017 is the fifth-most among the league’s current GMs.

And that’s not even including the Chiefs trading up for the 2017 selection of Mahomes, which was Dorsey’s deal but also so relentlessly driven by Veach that an exasperated Reid at one point told him, “All right, just stop.”

Chiefs unlikely to sit idle

With Veach openly addressing the potential to trade down this year, it bears mention that another enduring lesson of those Christmas memories is how Veach tended to camouflage the landscape.

So given the legacy of move-ups for the likes of Mahomes, Trent McDuffie and Xavier Worthy informing his perspective, who’s to say he won’t seek a bold move up for an ongoing essential need — like, say, another left tackle?

Nothing precludes working both ways, of course, as Veach and his front office seek to unlock and maximize what he calls “the full potential” of their draft board.

If someone the Chiefs ID as worthy in the first round falls from what he considers a hot zone around the 12th or 13th pick into what Veach called “a reasonable landing spot,” he said, “I’m sure we would make some calls” to move up.

“Typically, it’s unlikely to happen, but we don’t know,” he said. “A few years ago, it did happen with Trent McDuffie, and we were able to do that.

“So that will be kind of our mindset again, and we’ll see if it works out.”

Then again …

“We need to add depth on multiple fronts …” he said, “so trading multiple picks to just get one piece doesn’t really make sense.”

On the third hand …

“I think if a guy we really like does fall into the 20s and it’s (a reasonable price), I think we’ll be aggressive,” he said. “Otherwise, I think we’ll be happy with adding players at each round and multiple players in three.”

Sure. But also something we joked about the other day on our podcast hovers over this:

Whatever else may transpire, with no fifth- or sixth-round selections as of now, it’s hard to imagine Veach and the Chiefs idling in between their fourth-round pick (No. 133 overall) and three seventh-round picks (starting with No. 226 overall).

Because no matter what array of picks the Chiefs have, as ever he’ll surely be looking to reach for the prize.

“It doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a balance of controlled discipline,” he said, smiling. “And so I think I’ve slowly, over the years, gotten a little bit better with that.”

©2025 The Kansas City Star. Visit kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.